A curious thing happened to me in Barcelona. I entered Barcelona Sants station, knowing that I would need to get a seat reservation to leave north that day to Montpellier, on my way to Geneva.
To my surprise, the station agent told me that this Talgo train was booked out. The station agent kindly printed an itinerary for me to take a local train north to Cerbere, just over the French border. This train requires no seat reservation. The itinerary told me to connect to another local train in Cerbere to make my way to Montpelier. But as I was waiting on the platform for this next local train to arrive, the Talgo arrived at the platform, the same one that I was told was booked out from Bareclona.
I spoke with the conductor, and he told me that he had free seats, and I would need to pay only a 10 Euro seat reservation fee to board. Possibly people had gotten off the train between Barcelona and the French border. He himself couldn’t explain why there were free seats. But I was happy to sit down on this train that went directly to Montpelier, so I could connect onto Geneva and then to Zurich and then, the next day, onto Budapest.
Train Tip: The popular Talgo train goes north from Barcelona twice daily, at 8:45 and 16:42. It can book out in peak travel periods. If you are told that the Talgo going north from Barcelona is full, ask to take one of the many local trains that run north over the French border to Cerbere. Once in Cerbere, you can speak with the French station attendants about other local train options heading north. Remember that just getting over the border into France can be the key to other connections.
Benjamin Thomas
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